What is Left
by canyouseemyspark
Summary: "i was happier then. or was that i? or am i now i? can't bring back time. like holding water in your hand. would you go back to then? just beginning then. would you?" An AU where small changes lead to bigger ones. In many ways a reworking of my old story, Spoils of War.
1. Chapter 1

She is a young child when she first comes to Dorne, had recently passed her seventh nameday but looked even younger than that, short of height and with a child's roundness to her body. Quentyn remembers a single silver braid that fell halfway down her back, small curls framing her face and a blue dress with a silver lining but only because it reminded him of the stars he would count with his mother in the skies above the Water Gardens, before she left. He could only murmur a few words of welcome to her, made shy by the presence of all the men in the room – Lord Jon Connington and the king's men on one side while his father, crabs, swordfish, stars, seahorses, while his uncle and a retinue of Dornish lords and ladies stood in the other.

Arianne was more confident, fifteen years to the Daenerys' seven after all, and was the first one to step forward, leaving Quentyn to listen dumbly as she recited sweet words of harmony and bonds of blood and love. The Targaryen princess had feigned a smile then, kept that smile on her face through the feast that came afterwards, only faltered when her companions left Sunspear, Arianne to take Daenerys' place in King's Landing and Daenerys to take hers in Dorne.

He remembers little of it, only a silver braid and the sky and his sister's face as she turned around on her horse, going westward and laughing, hair swinging, remembers only the beating of his own heart.


	2. Chapter 2

Rhaenys, always thinking herself the oldest and the wisest, was the one to explain to Dany what it meant to get married. The word "marriage" had hovered in Dany's world for most of her life but it was only some abstract thing to her child's mind, incomprehensible and irrelevant. Rhaenys though, four years older than Daenerys and having recently been allowed to move from the nursery to her own bedchambers, lushly decorated and with all her own dolls, claimed she knew everything about it.

"You hold hands and go through the sept," She had explained, in a conspiratorial tone, mischief shining in her hazel eyes, "Then there is a big feast and you can eat all the sweets you want. Afterwards, the knights take your gown off and put you in the bed with your husband."

Aegon and Dany had giggled at that, trying to stifle their laughter behind their hands, but Rhaenys only rolled her eyes, a gesture she had recently learned and enjoyed using immensely.

"The wife and husband kiss each other in their bed without their smallclothes," She'd explained, exasperated, "That's how you make a babe."

Aegon giggled even more at that but Dany only paled. They had practiced kissing before, when no one else was around, pushing their lips against each other, mimicking the lords and ladies they had seen at court. It was their secret, but Dany hadn't known it could make her have a babe.

"But I don't want one."

Women died having babes, she knew. Her mother died that way and the queen almost did too.

Rhaenys scoffed, "You won't have a babe, silly. That only happens when you find blood in your bed."

Dany had been confused by that but didn't dare admit it, searched her bed for blood every morning and every night before she left for Dorne, mollified when there was only spotless cream silk beneath her, satisfied that Rhaenys had been proven a liar once again. And made sure never to kiss Aegon again, just in case.

Rhaegar's explanation of the life awaiting Dany in Dorne was much less shocking and much more somber.

She knew it was to be a special day when he let her climb into his lap, an act he had deemed her "too old" to do after her fifth nameday, let her wind her arms around his neck, cradling her as though she was a child. She remembered the smell of his solar, the smell of books, the smell of her brother.

He said nothing of kisses, only of duty, a word more bitter, even to a child.

"Do you remember what I have told you about the duties of a cupbearer?" He asked, and his eyes did not seem so far away.

"I am to serve Prince Doran without complaint and to heed all his commands," She recited, understanding little of what she spoke, words that had been drilled into her by her septas.

"Precisely," Rhaegar said, "And you are not to do anything which might trouble him, nor cause him to be unhappy."

Dany did not misbehave often, less frequently than Rhaenys and Aegon did for certain, but perhaps in Dorne different standards were expected.

"Is Prince Doran like Elia?" She asked.

Elia was kind, sometimes even let Dany sleep beside her and Rhaenys on the nights when storms battered the keep, asked after her wellbeing and always prepared a gift for her nameday. Rhaegar, however, only smiled his sad half-smile at that, put his arms around Dany's waist and instead of holding her closer only pulled her from his lap, setting her on the ground.

It had made Dany want to weep, that moment when she felt him pull away, just like she had wanted to weep as she looked back at the Red Keep one last time, as she wanted to weep when she stood in front of Prince Doran for the first time.

But Rhaenys told her princesses should not cry, so instead she glued her eyes to a painted marble tile on the floor of his solar, even as she felt his eyes appraising her, even as she was acutely aware of the eyes of another prince on her, Elia's younger brother Oberyn. He looked the most like the queen, the same black hair that met at a peak, the same olive skin and the dimple on one cheek but there was something in his eyes that frightened Dany, something like anger, only not quite.

"Come here, child," Prince Doran said, his voice quiet and calm.

She stepped forward slowly, watching her own feet move across the ground, counting the steps and looking up only when the prince himself reached out to touch her face and tilt it towards him. He studied her for a moment, before leaning back in his chair.

"You look very much like the king," He continued, "Though we have not laid our eyes on him for many years."

Prince Oberyn's face turned into something that looked like a smile, though it unsettled her, "Nor on our dear niece or nephew. Or even the queen herself."

Dany did not know if they expected a response from her, and even if they did she did not know what to say, so she only looked somewhere between the two brothers.

It seemed like an eternity before Prince Doran broke the silence, sighing, "Your grace, if you may, would you pour wine for my brother? Perhaps it will calm his nerves."

He motioned to a flagon resting on a painted table to her right and Dany held the cold handle, pouring the strong-smelling wine into a jeweled chalice. She carried it with both hands to Prince Oberyn, taking careful steps, and when he commented with a smirk that she had careful hands, Dany felt it was no compliment.


	3. Chapter 3

There were tears at first, lonely nights for a child who been raised in the capital and forced to part even from her septas, replaced by a host of Dornish minders. But it is easy for a child to forget, easier still when her days are filled with what Rhaegar had warned her about – duties.

She was to have been a companion to Prince Doran's wife, a Norvosi lady she was to serve as a handmaiden to, sleep beside on the nights when her husband did not attend her, help to dress her and to prepare her meals, while spending the afternoons with the prince. But the Norvosi lady had gone back to her home in Essos before Dany had even left King's Landing. Her betrothed had left as well, to a place called Yronwood Castle where he would be fostered and Dany herself was taken to the Water Gardens with the prince, her chambers placed alongside the prince's.

She woke before Prince Doran did, thankfully an easy task since the prince did not rise on most days until midday, and after breaking her fast in her rooms would await him in his, standing at his side as he feasted on dates and grapes, drank spiced wine that made her nose itch whenever she was pouring it. She attended him in meetings with members of his household, council sessions that she understood little of and that left her with a headache. In the first few weeks of her arrival she was made to attend him through his afternoon meal, stand beside him as he watched the children play in the shallow pools and fountains of the palace, before he retired to his solar, where she lit the candles, watched as he wrote letters and delivered them to the maester, returning to the solar in time to replace the candles, rearrange the parchment and the quills and inks before returning to her own rooms and sinking into her featherbed.

Dany did not mind it, perhaps because serving Prince Doran seemed almost a mercy compared to serving his brother. Prince Oberyn only came to the Water Gardens every fortnight, but requested Dany's service every time. She was made to tend to his chambers, something Prince Doran never asked of her, even to change the linens and replace the old rushes. Once she had even had to empty a foul smelling chamber pot and carry soiled clothing. She had seen the bald maester outside the chambers and asked him where she might find the washerwoman and he had paled at that, taken the stinking pile of silks from her with his own hands and sent her to her septa. The next day she had seen the maester whispering in Prince Doran's ear, pointing to her from across the room, and after that she was never called to serve Prince Oberyn.

Prince Oberyn is also the only one to mention her brother's name, in a private audience with his brother and though he looks at Dany warily as she stood at the door, waiting to be called, Prince Doran waved him on.

"Arianne writes of the queen," He continued, his eyes leaving her almost hesitantly, turned to his brother, "The king held a tourney in Arianne's honor and insisted on the invitation of House Baratheon. The queen was made to write an invitation to Lyanna Stark herself, as the Lady of Storm's End. Arianne says the court whispered of it for weeks, of how the king stood over Elia, raging and weeping, until she put the words down to the parchment and he saw it safely in the maester's hands. Whether it is true, she does not know."

No reaction registered on the older prince's face, he only asked, "And did Lady Baratheon attend?"

"No," Prince Oberyn responds, and it is almost as though he hisses the words, "She replied that she was unwell and Lord Stannis was sent in their place."

"He is their heir, there is no insult in that," Doran counters, and though the response does not seem to please the younger man Prince Oberyn says nothing, sits silently as though ruminating before rising suddenly, walking past Dany and into the outer chamber.

She was dismissed for the rest of the day, Prince Doran preferring to dine alone.

It was a few weeks before he had pity on her, perhaps catching her looking at the children splashing in the pools with envy, and allowed her to join them, as he looked on from afar. It was not long before she was included in their games, climbing on each other's shoulders in the cool waters, chasing each other through the gardens, their hair soaking wet, slapping against their backs, and on the warmest days laying out on the ground, skin against the cool marble. She befriends the sons and daughters of bakers and chambermaids, of lords and ladies, even ones with those same viper eyes, though they still frightened her.

The prince does not say much to her throughout the day and she has little to say to him. It is only once that he calls her from the pools in the midst of her games, has her sit beside him wrapped in a robe embroidered with golden suns.

"The Water Gardens were raised for another princess named Daenerys by a prince of Dorne," He explained, tearing into a blood orange, pressing a piece into Dany's hand, "The whole realm knew that the girl lover Daeron's bastard brother Daemon Blackfyre, and was loved by him in turn, but the king was wise enough to see that the good of thousands much come before the desires of two, even if those two were dear to him."

It was unsettling to speak of these things, things she did not understand, even as the sounds of the children laughing and splashing filled the air around them.

Prince Doran continued, "It was that bond that saved us from the carnage that tore through the Seven Kingdoms. She remembered her duty always, to her husband and to Dorne. Do you understand what it means, to do one's duty?"

Dany said nothing, wrapping the robe tighter around herself, wishing for the pools and the games. She tired of that word, did not understand it, did not wish to hear it.

To her surprise, the prince reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, looked at her with sad eyes.

"Return to the pools, princess," He said, quietly, "It will not be long before you are forced to play other games, ones with less pleasant companions and a more uncertain end."


	4. Chapter 4

King's Landing was nothing if not grim. There were balls, surely, and grand feasts and sometimes even tourneys. It was livelier than Sunspear, perched atop a great mass of homes and huts and twisting alleyways that stretch further than anywhere else Arianne had ever seen. It was easy to be taken in, when every day was filled with some new excitement, some new ladies to meet, some new adventure.

The illusion dissipated quickly.

It was not that the festivities ended, or that the court's attention shifted away from her. It was not even that she missed home, though she does certainly. It was rather that she comes to sense what her uncle had warned her of, something festering in the heart of the court, difficult to identify but there all the same, something rotten that threatened to destroy the very foundation, that stank and wept but that everyone had somewhere turned away from, managed to ignore and sweep away.

She did not see it when she was first presented to court. The royal family looked like a portrait from a storybook, something otherworldly to their features, their faces altogether too perfect, too difficult to turn away from. The king's appearance did not belie his years; in fact, he was dressed impeccably in embroidered black silk, intricate patterns running through the sleeves and collars, his silver hair tied back in a short braid. Arianne understood then why they called him beautiful. He made a handsome pair with her aunt Elia, dark beauty to the king's light. Rhaenys and Aegon, though still children, shared their father's indigo eyes, so dark they were almost blue, but had their mother's freckled olive skin, with Rhaenys taking her dark hair and Aegon his father's silver.

Her aunt Elia had invited her to a private audience in her solar that very same day, embraced her warmly and spoke to her of Dorne, of their family, advised her that though Aegon was young, still so much a boy, it only meant that Arianne would be his sole object of affection, that they could grow all the closer to each other before their wedding, to their own benefit and that of the realm.

Aegon, however, was only a little boy. He was nearly five years Arianne's junior, more interested in stealing sweets from the kitchens and chasing after his playmates, watching the Kingsguard in the practice yard and wielding his own wooden sword, than anything to do with her. She gifted him toys, sent him treats, sometimes attended his lessons with him and helped him with his reading but she knew it would be many years before he saw her as anything but his cousin.

Rhaenys is more embracing of Arianne's presence, eager for a companion, though it only makes Arianne feel like a nursemaid, makes her ache for Tyene and their friendship.

She was allowed to witness only a few of the cracks beneath the surface, rare evenings when Elia and the king sat across the room from each other, the air thick with tension, neither acknowledging the other's presence. It was intricate, this dance of avoidance they take around each other, rarely appearing in the same room, spending time with their children separately, and though they do share each other's beds once every moon's turn, Rhaenys confided in Arianne that her father slept in the outer solar and did not in fact sleep beside the queen.

It was only once that Arianne was able to see it for herself, watch it all bursting, the years of concealed pain, the rotten core of the marriage sliding to the surface.

They were seated at dinner in the queen's private chambers, celebrating Prince Viserys' arrival to the capital from Dragonstone. He was a handsome man, of the same age as Arianne, and seemed pleasant enough, though quiet and shy. He and Rhaenys had apparently been quiet a pair when they were younger, causing trouble for their minders, and they fell into a similar rhythm, taken to following each other around. It was near to the end of the meal when Viserys began teasing Rhaenys about suitors, now that she had flowered and ravens were reaching the capital from all corners of the Seven Kingdoms, offering their sons for bridegrooms. Rhaenys only blushed and Elia had even seemed to smile for a moment before Aegon joined in, began listing their names, peppered with comments about their appearance and the houses.

The name Davos Baratheon was mentioned, though by Rhaenys or Aegon, Arianne was not sure. The only son of Stannis Baratheon and his Hightower wife, the boy was younger even than Aegon, though it was said that he already had the Baratheon look and hints of his mother's beauty. He was heir to Storm's End, besides; with Lyanna Stark seemingly barren and her marriage to Robert Baratheon childish, it was all to pass to Lord Stannis and his children.

"We do not look to the Stormlands, neither for marriage nor for support," Elia had stated curtly.

The king had seemed as though he did not hear, or did not wish to hear, and Arianne was able to relax for a moment, able to look across the table and give a weak smile to Rhaenys, who had paled.

The relief did not last for long.

"We will consider all matches when the time is right," The king responded, his voice as smooth and calm as ever, though Arianne could see the tension in his neck, the way he held his fork, hovering over the plate of venison as though frozen.

Even Aegon had seemed to sense the tension then, shrinking into his seat as though he wished he could disappear. Arianne was tempted to do the same.

"Mace Tyrell has written not two fortnights past," Elia continued, "His son Willas is of age to marry, a handsome lad and kind by all reports, and Rhaenys would be happy at Highgarden."

Gallingly, the king only repeated his previous statement: "We will consider all matches when the time is right."

Rhaenys had stepped in then, perhaps foolishly, or perhaps thinking she could calm her parents, salvage the evening as best she could.

"I will not be married for many years," She said weakly.

Elia reached out and held her daughters hand.

"You will be married into a good home, Rhaenys," Elia promised, though her eyes did not leave her husband, "One where you will not be hated nor mistreated."

The king had only responded with, "enough," muttered so quietly Arianne was not sure if she heard it but it served its purpose, the room falling silent through to the end of the meal.

Rhaenys slept beside her mother that night and the king did not emerge from his solar for days.

King's Landing was nothing if not grim, but it would not be so when Arianne was queen.

* * *

Their betrothal had not meant much, not when he was young boy far away from home at Yronwood Castle. His princess was a far off thought then, when he was more concerned with swordplay and hawking and going on adventures with Cletus. It was only when he grows slightly older, reaches his thirteenth fourteenth fifteenth years, when the words paramour and lover take on a meaning, when his bolder companions begin to talk of different types of nighttime adventures entirely that he began to think of her.

He had seen the portrait of the first Daenerys hanging in Sunspear and though her beauty was apparent, it was hard to imagine her as a living woman. His Daenerys had the same silver hair, he vaguely remembered, and eyes that were lilac, or perhaps indigo. Perhaps she looked like her namesake now, perhaps her hair sat in heavy curls around her face, her lips red and full, breasts rising through the silks of her gown. Perhaps she kissed like the Drinkwater twins, perhaps she even looked like them, though with a pair of purple eyes and a tangle of silver hair with a woman's body and a bright smile. The thought of her leaves him twisting in his sheets, waking up to stains on his sheets until he learns to find his release with his own hands.

Gerris and Cletus had taken to teasing him about her, perhaps because they sensed how uncomfortable it made him. Gerris was crude while Cletus was kind, claiming his cousin had seen her at the Water Gardens and termed her the most beautiful woman in the world. Quentyn doubted the validity of these rumors – if that was true, he would have heard of it too – but he enjoyed thinking on it nonetheless.

It was an honor as well, the weight of it sitting heavy on his shoulders. Dorne had allied with the dragons before but this would seal the bond with the Iron Throne, mark it eternal with another double marriage, a Princess of Dorne for the Prince of Dragonstone and a princess of the Iron Throne for the Prince of Dorne. The rest of the Seven Kingdoms cursed them, spoke of snakes that needed their fangs pulled, poison spreading through the capital, and yet as his father explained to him, the king had decided the actions of those he had turned into his enemies were a more lethal threat than whispers of those who might one day become so. It went back to Harrenhal, Quentyn knew, to the king's madness or lust or love, to the time when everyone spoke of the possibility of a second queen and a Dornish host gathered to defend his aunt's honor and her children's claim.

It was a strange thought, his sister as a queen, but then again Quentyn figured his sister thought it queer as well, her brother as heir to Dorne with a Targaryen bride at his side.

The reality of it is altogether different.

He was called back to the Water Gardens not long after gaining his knighthood and it is not the princess he sees first but rather his father, sitting at the end of the gallery leading to the pools, shaded by the blood orange trees. For a moment it felt as though nothing changed, as though he were still a little boy in those very same pools, but his memories of that time were few and fade quickly as soon as he set his eyes on his father.

My father is an old man, he suddenly realized, an old sick man, fingers red and swollen, his face lined and hair grey.

His mind was the same as ever, however, as he asked after the Yronwoods, his studies and his training. The sun had set by the time Quentyn was finally dismissed, allowed to call on the princess in her rooms.

His father had told it had been a few years since she could no longer play in the Water Gardens, as she grew older. In her role as cupbearer she had passed the afternoons in the pools. When she flowered, she was confined by her septa largely to her rooms, made to read and practice her needlework and her harp. Her duties to Prince Doran had slowly decreased over the years, both because of her age and his father's worsening gout, though at times they still dined together.

She was a child when he first met her, so young he remembered catching her sucking on her thumb, guiltily pull it away whenever someone's eyes fell on her. She was a woman when he dreamed of her, with a woman's body and mouth and hands, all warmth and sweetness. She was something in between when he finally sees her again, sitting underneath a window, wearing a fine gown with hair falling across her shoulders. They had even lined her eyes with kohl, and though it would have perhaps been alluring on another woman it somehow looks strange on her. Though her body had slightly changed, small breasts rising slightly, her frame bigger overall, her body was a mixture of sharp angles, a child's roundness and an almost-woman's fullness.

He bowed in front of her and when she reaches out her hand, he kisses it briefly, hopes the tremor he feels is only his imagination.

"There are many who speak of your beauty but now I see for myself how woefully short their accounts fall of the truth," He recited.

He had practiced those words throughout his journey, but now felt only awkward saying it to her, all the more when she blushed – not as maidens blush but as a child might, turn her eyes away as though he had stripped her naked and she was avoiding his gaze.

"I am glad my lord finds me so," She murmured, picking at the rubies encrusted in her bracelets.

She spoke with a slight Dornish twang, not as pronounced as his or his father's but there all the same. Quentyn supposed that was a consequence of living in Dorne all these years, of Dornish septas and Dornish maesters. He supposed as well it was his father's doing, something that would please the bannermen, some stamping out of who she was.

The septa sitting in the corner smiled to herself, likely thinking the scene amusing or sweet but Quentyn only felt dumb, wracking his mind for something to say.

"My father says you enjoyed the pools," He began, "He says you are an able swimmer, and when you rode on my cousin Elia's shoulders you could bring down the older children."

She smiled at that, "Only sometimes. Elia preferred to play with her sisters. I would rather swim in the sea."

It was a childish sort of pride, all innocence and sweetness.

"After we are married, we can tour Dorne if you would like. We can visit the Sea of Dorne and take a boat down the Greenblood," Quentyn said, "Would you like that?"

She bit her lip and nodded, looking up finally and for one unnerving moment, Quentyn wondered whether his father was correct, whether she did in fact belong in a marriage bed and not in the pools with the rest of the children.


End file.
